Uganda: U.S. Legislation Authorises Military Action Against the LRA

Samar Al-Bulushi

25 March 2010

Despite harsh condemnation from US legislators in response to Uganda's draft bill criminalising homosexuality, the Senate passed a bill in mid-March that will prop up Uganda's government by authorising military action in the highly volatile region of Central Africa.

Introduced last May, the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act aims to 'support stabilisation and lasting peace' in Northern Uganda - the site of conflict between the Ugandan government and the rebel group Lords Resistance Army (LRA) since 1986. The bill calls for an assessment of options through which the United States, working with regional governments, 'could help develop and support multilateral efforts to eliminate the threat posed by the Lord's Resistance Army'.[1]

While the bill allocates funding towards humanitarian aid and post-conflict justice and reconciliation processes, the primary focus in Congress is on a military strategy to 'apprehend or otherwise remove' LRA leaders. And despite the bill's requirement that the government of Uganda commit to 'transparent and accountable' reconstruction efforts, it makes no similar demands of a military operation, thereby giving a green light to extrajudicial executions. With recent reports of US military drones flying over Mogadishu to help the transitional government in Somalia to track the Shabaab resistance, we can expect a similar 'multilateral' approach to eliminating the LRA.